David Cameron has acted on his threat to “Reverse the bias towards inclusion” for disabled children and other children who need extra help at school. The Governments green paper ‘Support and Aspiration: A New Approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability” is based entirely on the medical model of disability and will push back all the progress for which disabled people have struggled over the last 20 years. These proposals include:

Creating many more special school places

Removing the right of children to a legally enforceable ‘Statement of Special Educational Needs’

Re-introducing the infamous caveats in the law which allow local authorities to forcibly segregate disabled children

Allow many more schools to opt out of local authority control (and centralised services which support inclusion)

Put parents in control of their children’s financial resources until they are 25 years old

This is in the context of a massive cut back in the rights and resources being made available to disabled people and all the poor and disadvantaged families who constitute the group most vulnerable to these proposals, including changes to housing benefit, income support, DLA, rights to legal aid, Sure Start Schemes, Youth Work and so on.

WE MUST FIGHT BACK

PLEASE COME TO THE EVENTON WEDNESDAY JUNE 29th, AND DEMONSTRATE OUR RESISTANCE TO THESE PROPOSALS

Meet at 11AM, on WESTMINSTER BRIDGE in front of St Thomas’s Hospital.

You can find more information about Inclusive Education at the ALLFIE website